The Mind-Body Connection: How Mental Health Influences Overall Wellness

Many discussions around health and wellbeing centre around the validity of the mind-body connection, and often feeds the debate between a Western vs Eastern approach.

Generally speaking, Western medicine often sees the mind and body as two separate entities whereas, Eastern philosophies often see the mind and body entwined, and connected to each other.

The evolution of Western medicine has been underpinned by this disconnect between the mind and body and has lead to how people are diagnosed and ultimately treated. However, if you look at history this was not always the case. In years gone by a commonly held belief was that emotions were linked and patients were encouraged to visit spas or seaside resorts when they were feeling poorly or unwell.

Gradually, emotions lost favour as other causes of illness, such as bacteria or toxins, emerged, and new treatments like antibiotics cured one illness after another.

In recent years, mind-body medicine has provided evidence for the role that psychological factors have on illnesses e.g heart disease, and how certain mind-body techniques can assist in their treatment. Clinical trials have also indicated mind-body therapies to be helpful in managing arthritis and other chronic pain conditions, improving one’s quality of life, and may help to ease symptoms of disease.

At the same time, we are rediscovering the link between stress and our health and accepting that there is a powerful mind-body connection through which emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioural factors can directly affect our health.

An easy analogy is to see your body as a series of chemical reactions, that when you have a thought or feeling it triggers off a chemical composition to all your cells. Research is showing that these emotional and psychological states will translate into altered responses in the chemical balance of your body. This in turn affects the immune, neural, endocrine, digestive and circulatory systems.

With this in mind, we are offering a mind-body approach to a few common ailments that you may be experiencing, or could experience in the season of winter. Intended to demonstrate how your body may be speaking to you.

Please note: this is not a diagnostic tool, and we always suggest you consult a professional for your own personal circumstance. The questions posed are an approach to decoding the mind-body connection, and should not be substituted for professional advice.

Common Colds

You are exposed to many different types of viruses throughout the year and yet, we do seem to experience more in the season of winter? Yes, getting a cold could be a virus or based on the fact we are indoors more, but it could also be that your immune system was not as strong or your resistance was low, at the time you encountered the virus.

So was it the virus, or your low resistance that was the main cause of you experiencing the cold?

Usually the symptoms of a cold will include: a runny nose, watery eyes, stuffy or painful sinuses, a sore throat, and even a cough. Stress is a big influencer here, as it can reduce your immune efficiency. If this is due to over-work, it could be a signal that your body is flagging your need to rest. Or it can be due to a deeper emotional reason, and therefore you may want to dig a little deeper.

One way is to look at the symptoms, all related to mucus and tears, and release. So are you repressing any emotions of helplessness, anger or grief? Could it be unshed tears due to sadness, frustration or guilt, as often people will experience a cold after a trauma or emotional shock?

Another way to look at the cold is to look at the impact it has on your life. Having a cold typically means people stay away – is this something that you want, or need right now? Do you need time to adjust to a big change, or are you crying for attention? Do you often need to get ill, to get noticed and cared for?

All these questions are self-inquiry, as when you are working with the mind-body connection, it is your body, and your thoughts that are in sync, so you hold the answers as well. Take time to sit with the questions, dig a little and listen to what your body is saying. In doing so, you may find that the recurring symptoms may dissipate as you begin to address the main reason they have arisen in the first place.

Digestive Issues

The digestive system begins in your mouth, through the stomach, into the intestines to the final elimination. This whole process is vital to your well-being. It covers what we eat, how we eat it, what we feel when we are eating and how it is assimilated. This is a large component of your wellbeing, and would be difficult to cover off in a short article, so I have decided to start with your relationship with food.

• Eating represents the taking in of nourishment – so ask yourself, how do you nourish yourself? Through love or food?
• When you feel emotionally uncared for or rejected, do you turn to food? Do you eat the same foods, no matter what you are feeling?
• Do you have cravings? Do you deny any foods? Do you use your diet of what you can/cannot eat as a way to attract attention to yourself?

Start a relationship with your food by keeping a food diary; allowing you to see any patterns of behaviour and any clues to what your body may be saying to you, through the way you interact with food.

Allergies

When the body reacts to a foreign body (or allergen) it is perceiving it as hostile. You may experience this through sneezing, watery eyes, skin rashes, headaches. The question you have to ask is why is your body reacting so strongly?

Is it connected to an psycho/emotional need to withdraw? Are you putting up a resistance or not wanting to enter into something fully? It could also signal a fear of responsibility, accountability or not wanting to participate. Exploring an understanding of what you are trying to avoid or what you are truly afraid of, may assist this physical reaction in the body. Ask yourself a few of these questions and see what comes up for you?

• Are you overreacting to an emotional situation?
• What or who are you actually feeling allergic to?
• Do you feel you are withdrawing inside, and pushing your feelings down?
• Is there something you are not expressing, that you feel you need to let out?

The mind-body connection is a fascinating approach, and can be likened to being your personal detective by decoding your own body’s language. An exploration that you can often do for yourself or with a practitioner, and is wonderful way to play a proactive role in your overall health and wellbeing as you start to address the issues by looking into the root cause.